Trump: ‘Tougher’ migrant laws after NYC attack
WASHINGTON — Denouncing the suspect in a deadly New York City truck attack as an “animal,” President Donald Trump on Wednesday urged tougher immigration measures based on skills and other merit rather than a lottery.
The president also called the U.S. criminal justice system a “joke” and said he would consider housing the suspect among alleged foreign terrorists in Guantanamo Bay.
Trump noted during a Cabinet meeting that the driver in Tuesday’s attack entered the country through the diversity visa lottery and called on Congress to “immediately” begin working to eliminate the program, which applies to countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. Trump added, “We have to get much tougher, much smarter, and less politically correct.”
Earlier Wednesday, Trump went on Twitter to People in New York City participate Wednesday in a vigil for the eight people killed in Tuesday’s truck attack. The Council on American-Islamic Relations organized the vigil. call the visa program “a Chuck Schumer beauty” — a reference to the Senate’s Democratic leader. Schumer of New York criticized Trump for using the attack to score political points, then noted that the administration had proposed cutting the budgets of counterterrorism programs.
The lottery program, a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, was meant to allow individuals to enter the United States from countries that provided low levels of U.S. immigrants at that time. It had particular support from Irish-American and Italian-American groups and was backed by Schumer, then a member of the House, as well as Republicans from the New York area.
“Sounds nice, it’s not nice, it’s not good,” Trump said Wednesday of the program under which Sayfullo Saipov, accused in the New York truck attack that left eight dead, entered the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said on Twitter that Trump was unfairly blaming Schumer for the diversity visa program. Flake, one of Trump’s chief Republican foes in Congress, said Schumer was among a group of eight Republican and Democratic senators who proposed eliminating the program three years ago as part of a broader bill to overhaul U.S. immigration laws.
Flake, who was among those eight, said: “I know. I was there.”
The immigration bill failed in the GOP-led House after passing the Senate in June 2013.
Trump also said Wednesday that Saipov had either brought in or potentially could bring in 23 relatives. “They certainly could represent a threat,” he said, without offering proof.
Trump also suggested that the criminal justice system was partially at fault for terrorist acts.
“We need quick justice, and we need strong justice — much quicker and much stronger than we have right now. Because what we have right now is a joke, and it’s a laughingstock,” he said. “And no wonder so much of this stuff takes place.”
That sentiment seemed to spark Trump’s interest in sending Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which houses alleged enemy combatants seized overseas. Former President Barack Obama sought to close the facility, but Trump has long advocated its use. “Send him to Gitmo — I would certainly consider that, yes,” Trump said in response to questions from reporters.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said later that Trump was “expressing his frustration” with the criminal justice system, not suggesting a wholesale overhaul of the way domestic terror suspects are treated.